


Love Makes Me Sick

by SleepyEye



Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: F/M, Friendship is forever, I hate adulthood, Let's just stay kids, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-14
Updated: 2018-09-14
Packaged: 2019-07-12 07:41:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15990707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SleepyEye/pseuds/SleepyEye
Summary: I'm not done with the other one, necessarily, but I got tired of writing romance.





	Love Makes Me Sick

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not done with the other one, necessarily, but I got tired of writing romance.

Cormoran was wallowing and he knew it. Robin had been gone for three days, and he felt her absence like a phantom limb. Over the weekend he had been able to ignore it, pretend everything was normal. On a Monday her absence was more pronounced. A romantic getaway, that’s where she was, according to the flyer that she’d left on her desk. Her new boyfriend Dryden had gotten it for them, after just three months of dating. Cormoran thought it was a bit excessive, but hey, at least the guy was treating her right. Cormoran was glad that Robin had found somebody she liked, he really was. They had been together for three months now, and Robin didn’t seem to have any complaints, although she didn’t talk about it much. Dryden Wilson: young handsome engineer, with a rags-to-riches story. And riches was no overstatement. Dryden was a level of wealth that even Matthew had only dreamed of. Or he would be, if he didn’t donate most of his money to charity. Really, the only thing Cormoran could possibly criticize him for was his name. Dryden. What a God-awful name. He sounded like the type of guy who’d grown up at some elite boys’ academy, where they shoved heads in toilets and joined secret societies. Cormoran wondered if they were having sex, then quickly tried to banish the thought from his head.  _ What’s wrong with you? _ It wasn’t any of his business, and it was completely inappropriate to think about his coworker in that way. 

He spent the evening trying to distract himself, first with work, then with bad TV and takeaway. But he couldn’t shake it. His mind was racing too much to sleep, so finally he decided that if he couldn’t get away from his sadness, he might as well accept it and have a good wallow. So around midnight he heaved himself out of his chair and stumped his way down to the Tottenham with every intention of getting wasted.

He was barely in the door of the pub when he heard her voice ringing out over the room.

“Are you in love?” She was speaking very loudly to a couple at the bar, who looked incredibly uncomfortable. Robin’s face was red, and she was listing heavily to one side. A glass of wine was teetering in her hand.

“Well,” the man said, “Yes.”

“Good fer you,” Robin belted out, “Hold onto that. How long’ve you been together?”

“Two years,” he said.

“Ahhhh you’re just babies,” Robin said. She gestured wildly, causing her wine to slosh over. “Just you wait. Just wait. It’ll all fly out the window.”

Cormoran touched Robin’s elbow.

“Hey, Robin, come over here.”

“Corm-ran!” Her face split into a surprised smile. He had seen her drunk before, but this was a state of shit-faced beyond anything he’d ever imagined. He glanced at the bartender, who shrugged.

“Doesn’t take much,” the bartender muttered. Cormoran snorted. 

“True. She eat anything?”

“Crisps and a sandwich.”

“Alright. She have a tab?”

“Yeah.”

“Go ahead and close it up. I’ll take her home.”

After paying, Cormoran steered Robin out the door and into the street. She walked like she had brand new bones, leaning one direction and then the other, dragging her feet and bobbing her head. Cormoran had to keep a hand on her elbow to keep her from wandering off.

“I thought you were out on a romantic getaway,” Cormoran said.

“Ohhhhh God, don’t remind me.”

“That bad?”

“Dryden's a good guy. A really good guy.”

“Sounds like there’s a ‘but’ coming.”

Robin chuckled.

“Heh. Butt.”

“So what happened?”

“We had sex,” she said. Cormoran tensed. He looked her over: messy hair, smeared makeup. No bruises, but that didn’t mean… Robin saw him looking. “It was consensual, don’t worry,” she said. 

“I… are you sure?”

“Sex can be consensual and still be a mistake, you know,” she slurred. 

“I suppose so.”

“It wasn’t even bad sex. It was actually very good sex. Probably some of the best I’ve had.” 

Cormoran wanted to clap his hands over his ears and hum to drown her out. 

“You’re drunk, Robin.”

“I dumped him.”

This was not what Cormoran was expecting to hear.

“What? Really? Why?”

“Wasn’t ready. Don’t want complitment… commli…”

“Commitment?”

“Yeh. Not with him. Not right now.” She blinked sadly down at her shoes. “He cried a lot when I told him.”

Cormoran nodded, and they walked in silence to the office. Once inside, Robin flopped down on the sofa with a groan. Cormoran put a slice of bread in the toaster. 

“Do you want some toast?” he asked.

“Ermmmm yeh.” He put in a second a slice. “I’m sick of romance,” she declared, unprompted, “Like, literally sick. I’m going to barf the next time anybody mentions it.”

“Mentions what, romance?”

Robin pretended to gag.

“Any of it. Love, kissing, relationships, all of it. It makes me physically ill.”

“Okay. Let’s not talk about it, then.”

Robin nodded, making the room spin around her. She put her hands to her forehead and shut her eyes.

“‘M dizzy…”

“Keep your feet on the ground, it’ll steady you. There we go.” He sat down next to her. “So no love talk. Let’s talk about…” He looked around for inspiration, wondering what helped ground him when he was drunk. “Snow.”

“Snow?”

“Yeah. Do you get a lot of snow in Masham?”

Robin smiled, her eyes still shut tight.

“Ooh, yah. We get a lot of snow. Once we got two feet in one day. That was back in 2010, if you’ll remember how cold that winter was.”

“God, that was a terrible winter.”

“Coldest Christmas since 1820, is what they all said. We had fun, though. Snow turns me and my brothers back into children. Sledding, building forts, snowball fights…” She chuckled at the memories. “I beat them so bad at the snowball fights.” Suddenly she remembered that Matthew had been there too, and her smile slid off her face. He had asked her father’s permission to marry her on that trip home, and her father had granted it. 

Cormoran watched Robin turn deathly pale and she slapped a hand over her mouth.

“Shit, fuck, I’ll get a bucket,” Cormoran said, and handed her the recycling bin just in time. He held her hair back as she vomited into it. 

Finally she sat back, tears on her cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” she rasped, sniffing thickly, “He’s really not a bad guy, it’s just…” She squeezed her eyes shut. “ _ Complicated. _ ” The last word was whispered from the very depths of her soul, with an exhaustion much older than her 28 years. 

“I know,” Cormoran said, “God, don’t I know.” 

The toast popped up and Cormoran excused himself to prepare it, with butter and honey and cinnamon. He also poured them both cups of tea. Robin stuffed the bread in her mouth like she hadn’t eaten for days, and after she finished she licked the honey off her fingers.

“Sometimes I get such a deep longing for childhood, I feel like I can’t function,” she said, “I feel like I’m a kid being left at nursery school, and all I want is to be back with my mum, rocking in the big rocking chair.”

Cormoran nodded.

“My aunt and uncle didn’t have a rocking chair,” he said, “but we would climb in bed with them when we had nightmares or tantrums or what have you. They had a waterbed, and we called it the Argo, after the boat from Jason and the Argonauts.”

Robin smiled at this image. The alcohol and the crying and the getting sick had drained her, and now, with the hot cup of tea in her hands, her drunkenness softened into deep exhaustion. She curled her feet up onto the sofa next to her and rested her head on Cormoran’s shoulder. He tensed up a bit, but let her stay that way.

“Tell me more about Cornwall,” she said.

“Okay.” He considered. “We were right by the ocean, and in the summers we’d go diving off the cliffs. And in August the fair would come, and there’d be rides and lights. It’d always be a big deal to ask girls to go to the fair with you.” He glanced down at her. “Sorry, I guess that’s slightly romance related.”

“Not too bad,” Robin murmured sleepily, “What about Christmas?”

“Ah, I loved Christmas in St. Mawes. My aunt makes fancy soaps and sells them at festivals and Etsy and what-have-you. So in the winter we’d go to all these arts and crafts fairs. It was wonderful fun.”

“Every December thirteenth-” Robin interrupted herself with a yawn. “Every December thirteenth we would celebrate Saint Lucia Day, and I’d put on a crown of candles and serve my family pastries in bed.”

“On the solstice we’d light a bonfire on the beach,” Cormoran said.

“On Christmas Eve my brothers and I would build a fort in the living room to try to catch Santa.”

“Did you ever do it?”

“No. My mum would put rum in the eggnog and we’d pass right out.” 

“Never could handle your liquor, could you,” Cormoran said with a grin. Robin shrugged with a guilty smile.

“Would you go to Cornwall every Christmas?” she asked. 

Cormoran sighed. Sometimes Joan and Ted couldn’t find them, and they’d be stuck in London for cold, hungry Christmases. He spent most of his adult Christmases trying to erase these memories, memories of winters when their squat would get so cold the condensation from their breath would freeze on their pillowcases, and Cormoran would spend his evenings searching under train seats for loose change so that he could get a gift for Lucy. 

“My aunt and uncle always tried to bring us back in time for Christmas morning, but sometimes they couldn’t find us,” he said, “We traveled around a lot, and sometimes went off the grid.”

Robin yawned loudly, and Cormoran wondered if she would remember any of this in the morning.

“We’re gonna make up for bad Christmases,” she murmured, “We’re gonna have only good ones now on.”

“It’s June. We have six months until next Christmas.”

“Good.” Her eyes drifted shut. “We have time to plan.”

Cormoran waited until she started snoring, then stood and carefully adjusted her so that she was lying down on the couch. He went up to his flat and grabbed several blankets, which he brought down and tucked around her. She sighed and cocooned up tight. 

 

When Robin woke up again the clock was blinking  4:00 and there was a steady rain pittering against the window. She ran her tongue over her teeth. Her mouth felt like it had been felted. Someone was snoring beside her, and for a moment Robin thought it was Dryden, but then the memories hit her like a brick in the throat. It was over. She had ended it. He had cried, and asked questions, and cried more. She had wanted to end it for weeks, and the sex had been a last ditch effort on her part to become attached, like if she shared that level of intimacy with him, maybe she would want to stay with him more. And then they did it, and it had been good. But then, afterwards, she had been filled with such a profound feeling of shame and dirtiness that she had sat in the shower and cried for half an hour. She had triggered, really triggered, flashback and all. Hollowed out and broken. So she’d ended it. 

Her mind jumped to attention with a start. If she’d ended it, who was snoring next to her? Deep fear gripped at her. She had gone to the bar… She had gotten drunk… Too drunk. She sat up in a panic.

“Mm… Robin?”

Cormoran’s voice rumbled out from the darkness by her feet. 

“Cormoran?”

“Hey.” He had fallen asleep on the floor, leaning against the sofa. He cracked his neck. 

“Why am I here?” she asked.

“S’okay. You came here. Go back to sleep.” He patted her foot clumsily. Robin laid back down.

“Cormoran?”

“Yeh?”

“Thanks.”


End file.
